


a blank page is just history erased

by missymeggins



Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-13
Updated: 2010-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23079949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missymeggins/pseuds/missymeggins
Summary: Dedicated to my darlingeffie214for being the biggest supporter of my work and my best cheerleader!
Relationships: Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Kudos: 4





	a blank page is just history erased

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my darling [](https://effie214.livejournal.com/profile)[effie214](https://effie214.livejournal.com/) for being the biggest supporter of my work and my best cheerleader!

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


...  
  
  
After a summer apart there’s an awkward edge to their reunion. They’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in each other’s space because in those long weeks alone they’ve readjusted to the socially accepted concept of appropriate distance, reminded of its necessity with all other persons in their life. 

Not everyone likes to be as close as they. 

At the same time she can’t help noticing a heightened awareness of his presence that really doesn’t help her state of mind. Her fingers itch to touch him, just to reassure herself that he's real, and every time he's close she feels her arms lift, like they're going to wrap themselves around him of their own accord and that surprises her - though it probably shouldn’t. She’s spent too much of this summer preoccupied by what-ifs where he’s concerned. 

So they dance around each other, trying to regain their footing, find that rhythm which, at one point, had been so natural they weren’t even aware of it most of the time. 

(But everyone else had seemed to be.)

It's not easy though. He's keeping his distance and she doesn't know how to close it. Invading personal space has always been his department. She had just let him do it. 

She feels like she's looking at a blank page, like their whole history has been wiped away and she suddenly understands how daunting it must be to be a writer sometimes because how do you know where to start when all you see is...nothing? 

(There's not nothing though. There's pain and uncertainty and the faint markings of a history rewritten all in one moment because two people had been too scared to be honest about their feelings. 

The page isn't really blank – it's just hard to see what's there now.)  
  
  


...  
  
  


They catch a case but it’s more of a ‘Bill shot Jill’ than what they're used to, and for the first time she finds herself thinking like him, disappointed that there’s not a bizarre cause of death or some unexplainable facet for him to make quips about. 

He’s oddly silent and she’s never been good at filling silences. With him she’s never needed to and it scares her to think that maybe they can’t get back to what they had before. 

“So,” she starts, almost choking on her own voice as it fails to break the tension. 

She waits, thinking surely he’ll say something, surely he’ll look at her like he used to but he doesn’t and she tries to swallow the throbbing pain that swells up in her throat. 

“We should start talking to the neighbours, see if they heard anything,” she finishes and she can hear the hollowness of her voice. 

(A horribly selfish part of her hopes that he can too because then maybe he’d look at her again.)

“Sure,” he says, amiably enough, but his voice lacks genuine enthusiasm and he doesn't offer anything else. 

They drive in silence for the rest of the trip.  
  
  


…  
  
  


He seems to find his voice again when they get back to the precinct and he jokes and laughs with Ryan and Esposito while she starts work on the murder board. Alone. 

She hates the jealousy that rises up inside her, knowing perfectly well he's always been friends with the boys and he would never let that fall by the wayside just because they've...what? She doesn't even know what name to give to this _thing_ that's happened between them. 

When he finally makes his way back to her – she silently berates herself for even thinking the words (and then again for being so analytical of her own thoughts) because of course all she really means is back to where she's working – she works up the courage to broach the subject – one of many really – that’s been on her mind since he came back. 

It’s yet another reminder, amongst so many others, that things aren’t the same between them because he hasn’t once bugged her about what she thought of  _ Naked Heat _ . It’s not like him. 

She knows it’s not that he cares what people think of his writing; it’s just that he cares what the people in his  _ life  _ think of his writing. At the end of the day he doesn’t really  _ need _ great reviews (though they’re certainly easier to swallow than the obscure scathing comments Martha finds) from the New York Ledger; but he does need to know that his family, his friends, at least think he’s doing something worthwhile. It’s less about praise of the work itself and more an acknowledgement that although his job may seem frivolous and yet another way to indulge his inner child while stroking his ego, it’s worth something; it makes  _ him  _ worth something. At least to them. 

And she knows this (both that he needs confirmation that his words mean something and that they mean something to her.)

“You gave Rook and Nikki a happy ending.” 

She intends it as a statement but it comes out like a question and she silently damns herself for not being able to hide her nervousness. It follows her, this shake in her voice, like a stalker intent on her destruction and it instils the same kind of fear in her because she seems completely unable to control it and Kate Beckett _needs_ to be in control. 

“Seemed like the right thing,” he says, with an uncharacteristic shrug, as though to say what happens between two fictional characters means nothing at all to him; he just writes them. 

She doesn't really know what to say to this. It makes her question why she brought it up in the first place. _Nikki and Rook_ are always there between them but as real as they feel sometimes, they're just ghosts and they don't really have anything to do with _Kate and Rick._

Because Rick and Kate _ are  _ real and they're the ones who actually have to navigate the minefield that is their relationship. 

(Nikki and Rook can just fall into bed after a case, enjoy a string of casual flings and then decide to just keep doing it and turn it into something real. It's easy for them.)

“What man wouldn’t want Nikki Heat?” he adds so softly she almost doesn't hear it and she can't help wondering if that's because maybe she  _ wasn't _ meant to hear it. 

“Didn’t think Rook was interested in real,” she says and the familiarity of those words burns her throat. They also feel like a lie; an insult hurled at him in anger like a child who says ‘I hate you’ before bursting into tears because they don’t mean it. She learned that he went for real – and  _ was _ real – a long time ago. It’s not fair of her to pretend she hadn’t. But it’s hard, breaking the habit of believing in the masks they wear, despite the fact that they've both seen what was behind them on more than a few occasions. 

“He’s just a fictional character Kate. Does it even matter?” he says. 

He doesn’t look at her as he says this and that hurts more than anything. He's not treating her with anger or bitterness, just cool detachment, like he really is just a writer following her for research and not her friend and partner of the past year and a half. 

(And in this moment she wants to scream at him - and at herself. She can't understand why they're still doing this, talking about themselves in riddles and pretending that they don't understand each other. She wants to ask him why they can’t they just let it all go but she doesn't know how.)

“It matters.”

She stares him down because she's so tired and her heart is breaking a little because she just wants  _ Castle  _ back. 

He doesn't respond but he spots Ryan and Esposito across the room, says he has to go make fun of Ryan for the new tie Jenny gave him and walks away. 

He doesn't come back. 

(Later she finds out that he accompanied them as they tracked down the victim's place of employment. It's a dead end and the boys return to the precinct without him, telling her he had to go home but not seeming to know of any reason _why_.)

Her impulse is to run straight to the gym and kick the shit out of one of the punching bags but she doesn't have the luxury to just take off any time she wants. She has a person of interest to question. 

Her interrogation however is less than spectacular and her only comfort is that she's glad there was no one around to see it. The irony of course, is that the reason it didn't go so well is because his absence has thrown her off centre. All summer she's had Ryan or Esposito to sit in on interrogations, and though it wasn't the same as having him there, at least she hadn't been doing it alone. 

It turns out she really doesn't know how any more. 

(There's a deeper meaning here but she ignores it because right now she's hurting too much to deal with the subtext of her own mind. It's been beating her down all summer and she's pretty sure she can't take any more.)  
  


…  
  
  


He's there the next day when she arrives. 

He’s staring at the whiteboard, like she’s done so many times before and she remembers the hundreds of times, that she hadn’t thought anything of back then, that he had been there when he didn’t need to be, bringing her coffee or just sitting by her side while she worked out the pieces. 

It’s shocking to her, that she took it so for granted, didn’t even acknowledge the decency of it all. She had never thought herself a selfish person but with him she had become one. Not in all ways and not all the time, but it was there, lurking on the edges of their partnership.

She feels her anger at him from the previous day dissipate. She doesn't have the energy for it and she's not entirely convinced it's even warranted. 

(It's just that she understands anger a lot better than most other emotions.)

The truth is, it's not really about anger; it's about hurt and it's about both of them trying to navigate through that hurt. She's had enough time over the summer to reflect on the state of their relationship in the weeks before he left for the Hamptons and of course hindsight is twenty-twenty as they say; it provides a somewhat unwelcome clarity that she hadn't had at the time. 

She had hurt him. And then he'd – unknowingly – hurt her back. 

(She hopes – oh how she hopes – it was unknowingly.)

She brings him coffee and he looks at her like she’s grown a second head. He doesn’t recognise this between them. Of course he doesn't recognise it; it's completely new. There's absolutely no precedent for it but he does give her a brief smile that's more genuine that any he's given her so far since he returned and she accepts it graciously because she's been aching for him to look at her, smile at her, talk to her, the way he used to. She'll take anything at this point – even a half hearted smile (though it stings a little to see him holding back from her.)

And she wonders if this is what it will take. Does she have to start them over right from the beginning but playing his role, doing for him all the things he had done for her in the past year? 

The thought makes her head spin because she cannot imagine that it would even be possible to recreate the ways in which they had built their friendship. How could they get back what they had when it had been built on a thousand tiny pieces of themselves revealed slowly over time. How could they get that back without the slow burn of a forced partnership turning into something symbiotic and then evolving even further into friendship. 

It's like they'd have to work in reverse, let the ice caps thaw instead. 

She's not sure she can move so slowly.  
  
  


...  
  
  


She has too much silence to fill now that he's returned. It's funny – but she doesn't laugh – she thinks, because in his absence she'd found ways to occupy herself so she wouldn't think of him too much. Without a partner – without  _ him _ – she had found herself moving back in time to when Ryan and Esposito were her right hand and she had spent more time talking to them in the downtime between, and even during, cases that summer than she had in over a year. 

But now he's returned and Ryan and Esposito leave them alone, presumably respecting their partnership, but they don't really talk and the silence is cold and empty, forcing her to retreat into her mind, unable to avoid the thought which presses through everything else: how did they get here?

It's mostly her fault she decides. 

The past few months of their partnership had been an exercise in complacency that she hadn’t been willing to face. She’d become so comfortable with the banter, the flirting, that she was too scared to let it change. They had something good – and she hadn't wanted to ruin it with the reality that they might not actually work as anything more than what they had become; partners and friends. 

And selfishly, she had known (believed) that nothing had to change. For a year he had followed her around, and bar a few minor dalliances, he’d barely been a feature on Page Six in months. He valued her above everything else; he almost always put her first, the only thing taking priority over working with her being Alexis or Martha.

She had ignored it and clung to it at the same time; her selfish desires fighting with her wilful obliviousness.

More than that, she had made it clear to him that he wasn't  _ her  _ priority when she began putting Tom before, only to realise that mistake too late. It wasn't just that she was dating someone who wasn't him, it was that she had ceased relying on him as a partner. She was a hypocrite for it too because she recalls complaining, with a touch of jealousy in her voice, that Castle was paying too much attention to Jordan Shaw. She understands too well the way in which she hurt him. 

She hadn't meant it to happen that way but it did and she takes responsibility for it. 

(Of course she also accepts that they  _both_ played a part in the destruction of their friendship. His crime was walking away and closing his eyes to her; he should have been able to see it, the decision, on her face but he'd stopped looking at her – really looking at her – by that point in time. And she understands it was to protect himself but still, that was his part in this whole mess. Between them they'd managed to wreak havoc where there should have been none.)

And now she needs to fix it; too much in her life has already been broken.  
  
  


...  
  
  


They close the case quickly; a good old ‘Bill shot Jill’ never takes much time. But it’s late when they finally get a confession and she actually can’t remember the last time she ate. 

(This isn’t new exactly; she used to forget the little things – like eating – all the time when she first started, but when they'd begun working together Castle had stopped letting her do that. Sometimes it was just a packet chips from the vending machine or a slice of pizza from down the street but it was the gesture that mattered, the fact that he payed so much attention to her that he knew when she hadn’t eaten in too long. But he hasn’t noticed this time.)

(Her whole universe tilts off its axis; everything is just a little bit wrong. He's here but he’s not the same,  _ they _ aren’t the same.)

She sees him gathering his things, preparing to leave, and she knows she should just let him go home to his family, but the tension has made her reckless; she can’t deal with this strangeness any more, she has to do something, say something. Anything. 

“Wanna grab a burger at Remy’s? I’m starving. My shout.” 

She babbles it a little bit, there’s that nervous edge to her voice again and god she hope he can’t hear it. 

(Or maybe she hopes he can. She doesn’t know any more. She just wants things back the way they were. If she's lost her chance to move forward with him, she can deal with that, as long as she doesn’t lose all of him.)

“I should probably head home. Alexis worries,” he says tiredly. 

“Yeah, of course. I shouldn’t have suggested it,” she says, turning away and beginning to pick up her own things. She sees him start to leave from the corner of her eye and bites her lip to stop herself from calling after him and actually begging him to stay. 

He stops though, without a word from her, and turns back around to face her. 

“No it’s fine...you know, actually, a burger sounds great. Alexis won’t mind.” 

She pulls her jacket on and nods her acknowledgement, unsure of what to say, choosing instead to simply walk silently with him across the empty precinct. 

The elevator doors close and they stand on opposite sides with so much space between them she can barely feel his presence and they’re both not speaking as loudly as they ever have. 

The once conscious thought that breaks through the confused tangle in her mind is  _ dear god Remy’s better fucking fix us.  _

She can’t stand this for much longer; she needs them to be ok again. 

She’s never been so afraid of losing something as much as she's afraid of losing _them.  
  
  
_

...  
  
  


It’s not quite the same as it used to be, but sitting in a booth at Remy’s, quietly eating their burgers and sipping their shakes, is the closest they’ve been to normal since he came back to work. 

Not that she knows what normal is. They’ve never been normal, at least not by the usual definition. But what she means, she thinks, is that they had created their own normal; they found something together and it belonged to just them. The others noticed, commenting on the way they finished each other’s sentences. Lanie called it ‘cute’. She’s not sure ‘cute’ is really the word for it. But then again, she’s not sure if there is a word for it.

What they are is unique to them. It’s why she’s so desperate to get it back. She can’t remember the last time she’s had something so important in her life that wasn't just working murder cases. She loves her job and the unconventional family she's built there but for too long it's been a shield against most of the real world, protecting her from more heartache. And although he had started out as an unwelcome intrusion in her work, he had begun bringing the world back to her and in the process providing her with something she had needed for so long: fun. 

He’s still quiet and she’s racking her brains to find something, anything, to say that will spark a normal conversation between them, when he takes the lead and speaks first. 

But it’s not normal conversation that he steers them into. 

“How’s Demming?” 

His words hit her with so much force she can actually feel the back of the booth digging into her back and her breath hitches in her throat and the pressure builds in her chest threatening to tear her apart right there and then. 

But now she understands why things have been so _wrong_ between them since he came back; he’s been so disconnected, so distant, because he’s still standing back, trying to give her happiness with another man even though the cost is his own pain. 

She wants to laugh and she wants to cry. They always end up in these twisted circles, uncertain and afraid, guarding themselves from the truth. 

But no more. 

“I don’t know,” she tells him bluntly, silently begging him to understand what she’s saying and come back to her. 

“You broke up?” he questions. There’s caution in his voice and she hates that they’ve come to this. 

“Yeah.”

She’s blunt and to the point. She’s worried she’ll say too much if she isn’t. 

“I’m sorry to hear that. You seemed happy,” he tells her and this time he's actually looking at her and she reads in his face that he truly is sorry because he wants her happiness and she really does know this because he has always tried to ease her pain. 

“It was the right thing. He wasn’t what I needed. Too much like me, you know? Ying and Yang and all that.”

(And there she goes, the words spilling out of her like a dam breaking. She had wanted to avoid this but maybe it’s better to just get it out there.)

“I need...” 

She stops here, recalibrating her approach, aware that she has to be clearer than this. 

“I  _ want _ someone who helps balance me. Another cop just isn’t a good idea,” she tells him, hoping he recognises the allusion to his own words so long ago.

“You need someone who makes you feel alive,” he replies.

(And this of course  _ she  _ recognises so well. These are the words which have rung in her ears all summer. She just wishes she could have forgotten the words that came after because they had haunted since she spoke them. 

_ But in the end you know he'll just let you down. _

They'd been such reckless, stupid words, borne out of an irrational attempt to protect herself.) 

“Yes, I do,” she tells him. 

And then there's silence while they both try to process this admission from her lips and figure out where to go from here. 

She breathes a sigh of relief when Castle takes the lead. 

“You know, this summer at the Hamptons...Gina was just there as my publisher. She bailed as soon as she got the manuscript and nothing...you know,  _ romantic... _ well, what I mean is... I didn't sleep with her,” he finally manages to say, rather bluntly before bumbling on. 

“I don't know if that matters or anything, but I just thought you should know.”

“Thank you Castle,” she replies, unable to form any other words because this subject is still so raw for them. They're changing definitions, drawing lines in the sand, and baring truths under a glaring light. It's confronting, for both of them, and they need to step back from it while they readjust. 

She's not sure where they go from here but at least the burdens of believing they'd each been replaced by the other have been lifted. 

It's a good start. 

They finish their dinner, mostly in silence, but it’s more the like the silence they used to fall into after long nights at the precinct and she's ok with that. 

At least it's a silence she can understand.   


...  
  
  


...

He greets her with coffee and a bear claw and that classic Castle smile.

God she had missed it.

He sits in his chair – it’s always been his chair; it’s wrong with anyone else in it and it’s wrong without him. Just an empty space really.

(She wonders briefly when she became this philosophical. It doesn’t seem to fit with the idea she has of herself, but then she remembers the summer abroad in Russia and the way she’d devoured poetry and literature and yes, even philosophy. The problem of course is that she had made herself forget that person when her mother died, too terrified to even step back into her body for fear that it would just feel empty. So instead she had built herself a new life, a new name (Kate - not Katie or Kitty Kat like in her childhood) a new belief system: cynicism. But he’s slowly been finding the miniscule fragments that were left buried inside her like splinters of glass and he's been bringing them to the surface for the past year. No wonder it had been so painful at times.)

They catch a case; it’s a good one too, the kind they like. There’s body paint and feathers involved and when she tells him of this fact, the smirk rises to his face within an instant and she’s just waiting – eagerly actually – for the innuendo to start.

But he just turns his grin on her and looks at her - really looks at her - like he used to.

“Shall we detective?” he queries with something in his voice she can't quite identify.

And then it clicks and she really hears it. The sound in his voice is assurance; it's confidence that they're ok again. They may still have some things to sort out, boundaries to navigate, steps forward to take, but at least they're them again.

“Come on, Castle,” she says grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair and swiftly overtaking him. It's entirely possible there's a slight swagger in her walk that hadn't been there the day before.

(It's also entirely possible that he notices it.)

...

“Dinner?” he asks and finally it sounds completely normal again.

“Sure, where to tonight?” she asks.

(They’ve branched out. Remy’s is good but they don’t want to get stuck in a rut. She tries not wonder if that’s subtext or not.)

“My place? Alexis has been at me to invite you. Says you shouldn’t eat out so much, you need a home cooked meal. You game?”

“Sure, sounds nice. Alexis is sweet to think of me.”

“She asked about you all summer. She really looks up to you.”

She doesn’t know how to respond to this and she feels the blush rising to her cheeks, hating that he can see it. She’s not used to being a role model; the concept isn’t entirely foreign, she is a cop after all, and law enforcement is always a hit at those ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ career days at school, but she’s never actually had anyone looking up to her. She’s never been around anyone who needed a role model and it upsets her a little because she hates to think that Alexis has been looking at her all these months, thinking that's who she should be. It’s not that she’s self loathing – for the most part she’s content with her life and proud of who she is – but she hates to think that anyone as open as Alexis could ever be so afraid to take chances as she had been for so long. Since Alexis has known her, Kate's been cautious, reserved, and unwilling to take risks; that's not who she wants Alexis to look up to.

But the summer has given her a much needed push and she's resolved to be more open, to let people in more. She just hopes she gets the chance to show Alexis this.

“Thanks,” she says awkwardly.

“No need to thank me detective, it's just the truth.”

He smiles at her and then he puts a hand on her shoulder, sliding it down her arm gently, and says, “I mean it. I’m glad she has someone like you in her life. She needs more stability, what with myself and Martha,” he finishes with a trademark grin.

(Secretly, she thinks Alexis is pretty lucky, in spite of her seemingly childish role models. It’s clear to her that Alexis has everything she needs in the way of support, and a lot of fun on the side. She could never, not for even a second, doubt that Castle is a wonderful father.)

“Come on,” he says, grabbing her coat off the back of the chair and holding it out for her. “Dinner awaits!”

She doesn't even try to hide her smile.

...

Stepping into his loft that night feels like stepping back in time. It’s all the same and she doesn’t know why she thought it wouldn’t be except that it’s so hard to imagine that anything could have stayed the same while the very fibre on which they were built had been torn apart.

(She feels melodramatic but it doesn’t help that Martha is over at the piano practising ‘On my Own’ from Les Mis. Honestly, it’s like she’s singing the soundtrack to her summer psyche.)

But of course it's the same.

Alexis greets her with a huge smile (like always) and Martha ceases her performance to open a bottle of wine (like always) and Castle talks to all of them, joking and laughing and reigniting that long lost feeling of family (like always.)

She should be glad that it's still the same, and in that rational part of her head she is, but a summer without the Castle's has meant she got intimately reacquainted with a life of solitude and though she likes Martha's outrageous stories and Castle's jokes, it's a little overcrowding.

(That's the problem with Castle. Well, not with him, but with their relationship over the past year and a half. It's been inconsistent; they started and she got used to him and then tossed him out of her life and it was hard. And she knows that part was her own fault and she'd made peace with it and had been gradually letting him back in to her life, and in the process letting noise into her life, when it had all fallen apart again. She'd heard nothing but silence over the summer, seen no one but herself and discovered that actually, she doesn't like solitude any more. But still, it isn't easy to go from nothingness to everything all of a sudden.)

“You want help with anything Alexis?”

“Sure. You can help me chop stuff if you like?”

Kate likes that about Alexis. She doesn't insist on doing it all herself just because she's supposed to be cooking for a guest.

“I can help too,” she hears Rick say, standing somewhere behind her.

“No offence dad, but you're usually more of a hindrance than a help in the kitchen,” Alexis laughs.

“Hey! I am great with onions,” he calls back.

“But there are no onions in this dish,” she counters pointedly.

“Fine then. I'll just monitor mother's intake of wine then shall I?”

Kate smiles and lets out a breath. She needs to ease back into this and Alexis seems to understand that, keeping her busy for a good half an hour chopping vegetables and stirring things while Alexis tells her about her summer at Princeton.

She's still not sure she likes the idea of being the girl's role model but she's quite confident she can handle being some kind of a friend. She likes that Alexis wants to tell her these things, just as much as she likes wanting to know them.

(For that she blames – or rather thanks – Castle; his incessant chattering about Alexis has caused a strange kind of affection to grow in her. But she likes it. That small circle of family, which for so long had really just been her dad and Lanie and the boys, has started to widen since Castle's presence in her life and the thing that strikes her most is how it just kind of snuck up on her. Especially with Martha and Alexis, because really, she only knows them because of Castle. But somehow she's started to develop relationships with them that don't depend on Castle being there. She feels comfortable enough that she could spend time with either of them and find something to talk about, despite their age differences and she likes that feeling.)

“...so it didn't really work out with him in the end, but I think it was a good experience you know? It's good preparation for when I actually go to college. I feel much more prepared now for the social aspect of it and not just the academic side.”

Kate tunes back in right at the end of Alexis' story and realises she hasn't really heard a word of it.

“Sorry honey, I kind of drifted off there for a second.”

The word slips out of her mouth so easily and Alexis doesn't even blink, like it's perfectly normal to hear Kate call her 'honey'. And maybe it's not really a big deal. Maybe it's just the natural progression of things and it feels unfamiliar because sometimes it takes Kate a little longer to catch up to things of this nature.

(She gets a little lost sometimes, in the wilderness of affection; she's never been good at endearments.)

“It's cool,” Alexis says easily, throwing her a grin across the kitchen. “Want me to start again?”

Kate laughs, glad for Alexis' good nature. “Yes please. Tell me all about it – before I have to hear it all from Castle!”

Alexis stops chopping carrots for a moment and turns to face Kate properly.

“Hey. I don't really know what happened between you guys over the summer, but I just want you to know I'm glad you're back. Dad's happier when you're around.”

She can't help the smile that takes over her face. Even when she'd occasionally allowed herself to consider the possibility of a relationship with Castle she hadn't really thought about Alexis. At least, not in the context of how it would effect her. So now, hearing the young girls' approval, she realises how lucky she is that she's already been welcomed so warmly into the Castle home.

She's overcome with a feeling of impulsiveness because she doesn't even think before wrapping her arms around Alexis and giving her an affectionate squeeze.

“I'm glad I'm back too Alexis.”

And she is.

...

The next night she asks him first.

“Dinner?” she suggests as she's filing her last pieces of paper work and gathering up her things.

She's trying to sound casual, pretend like it's no big deal but of course, as small as it might seem, for them it is a big step because she's never been the one to initiate these things – except for that first dinner at Remy's after the summer but that had been borne out of desperation on her part to regain some normalcy between them - and now she's realising it's important that she does because so far he's done (almost) all the giving in this relationship and it's time she started putting in more effort instead of just letting him lead them in small steps forward.

“Where to?” he says easily, without hesitation, because dinner has become their routine over the past week or so and they've finally gotten to a place where it's just expected, by both of them, and there's no questioning of motive or fear of what it means.

“My place?” she suggests, intensely aware of the significance of this offer. Although dinner has become their thing, it's always been public; diners and restaurants or family dinners at the Castle loft.

It makes her nervous and she takes some small comfort in the fact that he seems to mirror her feelings, taking a long pause before replying.

“You sure. I don’t want to put you out,” he says looking at her carefully.

“Yeah,” she says a little shyly. “You haven’t seen the new place yet.”

Of course, he’d barely seen the last place; a single night camped out on her couch and rifling through her kitchen the next morning as he cooked her breakfast was the most he'd ever gotten.

It had been one of the few barriers she’d kept between them; a last stand at keeping some measure of privacy, some last fragment of belief that he didn’t know everything there was to know about her. Not because she didn’t care about him but because from the beginning he’d managed to see so much of her even while she tried to hold him at bay and she still craved some measure of control.

But now she’s ready, she wants him to see more than who she is at work; she wants him to see her life because she's offering it to him and not because he's an insanely perceptive writer who manages to decipher her layers. She also knows that after their summer apart and the strained reunion they'd experienced, a new start is what they need. It’s not about starting completely over, there’s too much history between them to just wipe it all away, but what they need is something new to build on, to move forward with, and her new apartment is the best place she can think to start.

It's fitting in more ways that one. As it happens, he’ll be the first to see it. She hasn’t even had Lanie over yet.

(Not that it was a conscious choice; she just hadn’t been very sociable over the summer. And the few times she and Lanie had gotten together it had been on Lanie’s insistence that she needed time out, which of course meant a bar. And a lot of alcohol. But that's beside the point.)

“Sounds good,” he tells her with a smile. It’s not his usual grin, it’s softer, kind of like the smile he gets when he’s talking about Alexis. It’s sincere and she likes that.

There’s a certain tension in the car as they drive the short distance to her new apartment (she’s taken to walking to work over the summer) but it’s something akin to anticipation, the knowledge that this is something new for them weighing on their minds. Of course, it’s the good kind of new, but still, they haven't had something new in so long because before the summer they’d settled into such a comfortable routine where nothing had changed in months.

Until Tom had upset the balance. Not that she blames him. It's entirely not his fault; he just happened to walk into something unique and precarious and they – Kate and Rick – had let things get messed up because of it.

She unlocks the door and she feels his hesitation and that fact is so confronting, so indicative of the rift that’s run between them since he left that she just wants to close the distance between them – both literally and figuratively – but she can’t bring herself to reach out to him because it’s too raw, too meaningful and they’re not there yet.

(Yet. Always the word yet with them.)

Instead she just stands aside, simply letting him in (and that in itself is so symbolic it practically chokes her, but symbolism is supposed to be his thing, not hers because he’s the writer and these changes in role just confuse her.)

“It’s not as good as the old place but it’s getting there,” she says trying to fill the silence as he looks around.

“Your bookshelves need filling,” he says, seriously, tracing his hand along the spines of the few books she’s managed to collect since the explosion, as if memorising them.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “It’s gonna take a while; I had a pretty decent collection.”

(Her books – especially his books – had been one of her most mourned losses.)

“I’m sure I can help you with that. At the very least I can get your Castle collection back up to speed.”

She shakes her head, uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. Her love for his books, and the sanctuary they've provided over the years, is still something she's reticent to share with him. She hates herself just a little bit for it because he deserves to know how valuable his words are, but it still touches on a depth of pain that she can't truly talk about yet.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Well, no. I mean, if you don’t want them, of course. Never mind.”

He’s babbling and she realises that he thinks she’s mistaken his gesture as a show of ego instead of what it really is, an attempt to reconnect, remind her that he cares (like she could forget) because he’s gone months without being able to offer such a gesture and she's come to understand that these things are important to him.

“No, I just meant you shouldn't go out of your way for me. But of course I’d love to have my Castle collection back. Thank you,” she says softly. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

She feels bad, changing the topic like this, but she’s not good at dwelling on moments. It’s not that she doesn’t want him to know that she’s grateful – she does and she is – but she needs to find some balance between them. If she doesn’t she’s afraid she’ll be standing too close to the edge and she just jump without thinking. She’s not ready for that yet; she needs to work her way down slowly.

But still, she gives him a smile, tries to make him see that she appreciate him, even if she doesn’t always make it obvious.

“Sounds great. Are we ordering in?”

“Uh huh,” she nods, “there are take away menus on the fridge, pick whatever you want.”

She moves to the kitchen, reaching for glasses and a bottle of red, and he’s right behind her, close enough that she can feel him and the truth is, she likes it. It's still new, so there's a touch of strangeness to it all, but mostly she finds she's comfortable having him here in her home. It doesn’t feel intrusive, like she had always though it would. It doesn’t feel like he’s a writer doing research; he just feels like a part of her life.

(It shouldn't surprise her the way it does; he has been part of her life for more months than she can remember. He was there through the horror that was discovering the truth – or part of it – about her mother's death; he was there in the wake of losing her apartment to a madman. But more importantly he had been there day after day for over a year, just being who she needed.)

When the food arrives (he's ordered enough to supply her with leftovers for a week and again she finds herself pondering on the lengths he goes to in order to ensure she eats properly – or at least doesn't starve) they settle into easy conversation, talking about Alexis and Martha, Ryan and Esposito, their cases and the reviews of Naked Heat. They rarely lapse into silence and when they do it's no longer cold and empty.

As he leaves that night – or the next morning really, because it's close to 2 when they finally stop talking - she allows impulse to overrule thought and she reaches out for a brief hug on her doorstep. He seems surprised but she feels his arms circle her back ever so briefly before they part.

“Night Rick,” she murmurs.

(It's the first sentence on this empty but worn page and she's holding the pen.)

…

(They watch from the sidelines – where they've always been, because it doesn't matter that they're all part of the same team, when it comes to the relationship between Rick and Kate there's a magnetic field that holds them in the centre and keeps everyone else on the edges – and silently cheer as each piece of their relationship falls back into place.

They see her bring him a cup of coffee and they give each other significant looks because this is something new, and more than that, it's something big. Things are moving forward and they're holding their collective breath, crossing their fingers, and silently saying to each other “please let this work.”

It's not something they had ever really discussed before. They all saw it, and occasionally they joked and teased, but they never dared actually broach the issue with any depth. They were all too afraid of involving themselves in something so... contained.

But now, it's like it's spreading. They're still them, they still finish each others sentences and they still seem to be tied together by some kind of magnetic force, but now they're less protective of it; they don't try to hide it so much, as though they've realised that no one is laughing at them; on the contrary their friends all believe in it as much as they do.

They watch as night after night they leave together, with smiles on their faces and an air of anticipation so apparent it's felt even by the most casual bystander.

The world shifts on it's axis again but this time it slides into focus; things are as they should be.

Or at least, they soon will be. No one doubts how this story will end any more.)

…

She wakes one night and can't get back to sleep. There's a restlessness in her bones that takes hold of her and it feels like a wall of water rushing towards her and she knows the dam is about to burst.

She ignores the voice in her head that tells her it's too late to call him (because the hour might be late but already too much time has passed) and reaches for the phone, her fingers dialling his number in the dark.

“Rick?” she queries, as she hears him pick up the phone but is met with silence on the other end.

“Huh?” he mumbles, obviously still half a sleep.

She finds herself smiling at his confusion.

“It's Kate,” she prompts him hearing him clear his throat in an attempt to find his voice.

“Kate? It's 3 in the morning. I thought we discussed this. Call me when there's a murder, unless it's the middle of the night.”

“There's no murder.”

“Well then why are you calling me at 3 in the morning? Wait. Is something wrong?”

“No. Well, yes. Sort of. I just....will you have dinner with me?” she eventually blurts out.

She had meant to work up to that part with subtlety and care but she decides it doesn't really matter. What's important is that she's said it.

“Dinner? We have dinner almost every night.”

“Right. But I was thinking dinner. Like a date.”

“You're asking me out on a date?” he says carefully but she thinks she can hear the smile in his voice. She hopes she can hear the smile in his voice.

“Yeah, I am.”

She takes a deep breath (she's holding the pen in her hand again and though it's shaking she's determined write the story she wants) and lets go of every fear and every reason she's used over the past year as an excuse to avoid this.

“Look. We've been dodging it for nearly a year – well I guess, I've been dodging it more than you but I was ready to stop before the summer – and it's taken so much to get things between us normal again and I don't want to risk losing it again. Losing us again. So yes, I'm asking you on a date because I know we both want more and I can't wait any longer.”

“Tomorrow too soon?” he asks her.

“Not soon enough,” she replies. “But I guess it'll do.”

She hears him chuckle on the other end of the line and it's such a good sound she can barely contain her own laughter. Happiness wells up inside her and at the same time she feels something burst and all the pain of the summer drains away, leaving only relief and hope in it's wake.

“Until tomorrow Kate,” he says and his voice is laced with so much affection she can feel it's warmth.

“Until tomorrow,” she replies.

She goes to sleep with a smile on her face.

And so does he.

…

The precinct literally cheers when, one morning, they step out of the elevator, hand in hand, twin smiles on their faces.

Captain Montgomery makes his way out his office as they pass by, roused no doubt by the cheers and whistles echoing through the bullpen, and looks pointedly at their entwined hands before fixing them with a deep stare.

“It's about damn time,” he says.

They laugh because it's true.

(And because they're happy.)

...


End file.
